


You Wake Up

by Winterling42



Series: Flesh and Blood and Dust [48]
Category: Mad Max Series (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Daemons, F/M, Literal Sleeping Together, Post-Canon, Witches, waking up next to each other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-27
Updated: 2018-05-27
Packaged: 2019-05-14 07:29:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 896
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14765246
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Winterling42/pseuds/Winterling42
Summary: Sleeping is dangerous, but it can be better with someone to watch your back.





	You Wake Up

 

Max woke up slowly, which was the strangest thing that had happened to him in ages. He took a few moments to puzzle it out, this rested feeling, blinking out across the room. When knowing where you are could be a matter of life and death, you tended to cultivate that skill; Max knew at once he was in the Citadel, in a room that was not a prison cell, and that there were three guns within easy reach.

Epharia was asleep on the floor, and Aurelio was perched on her back, his head tucked under one wing. They must have come in sometime last night – both daemons had been missing when he and Furiosa had retreated to her room. He didn’t bother asking how they’d gotten past the locked and dead-bolted door: _opening_ locks was a specialty of Aurelio’s. _Breaking_ them was something Epharia had learned outside of Bartertown.

When he’d gone to sleep, Furiosa was pressed against his back, a warmth that somehow eased the aches in his bones that Max’d thought would never let him go. Now, the sun poured in through a high window, splashing across a mechanic’s desk, full of tools and scrap and scratched designs in the metal that, from this distance, looked like the patterns on the blankets the Vuvalini had brought. Just the edges of Aurelio’s feathers were gilded in the morning, the tips of Epharia’s ears, and Max could feel Furiosa’s hand pressed against his shoulder-blade, could hear her breathing slow and steady as deep water.

His first instinct was fear: there was no such thing as safety, and the lie his eyes were telling him could get him killed. His ghosts lurked around the edges of his thoughts; Glory could be crouched under that bench, child-wide eyes staring. Max waited for their whispers, for their accusations. The only good thing about his fear was that the instinct to freeze outweighed the instinct to flee, and so he was a paralyzed spectator; he didn’t exist inside this room, because it couldn’t possibly exist. 

“You know it’s kind of fucked up that we can’t even imagine a place where we’re safe.” Epharia didn’t move, except to tilt her head up and fix one eye on him. Max shifted to lay one hand on her back, careful not to disturb the eagle, and dig his hand into her fur. It felt real, it was rough with dirt and wear, comfortable under his fingers. 

“I know.” His fear was still clawing at the inside of his chest, but Max refused to let it show. He lay motionless, feeling how his own weight pressed down on him, how Epharia’s coat felt beneath his hand, how the press of Furiosa’s hand held him in place as steadily as a chain. How it felt to _want_ to be held. 

“You were right,” Epharia said, before Aurelio could wake. “About coming back. It was right.” 

Max let out a huff that might have been a laugh, if he could remember how, and he patted his daemon’s side. 

They didn’t lay there long before Furiosa took her hand away to stretch, before Aurelio’s keen eyes emerged from underneath his wing and he flew to the edge of the desk, standing up as straight as he could and flapping his wings a few times to loosen them. Max followed them, moving to the end of the bed to pull on his cracked boots and look back at Furiosa, and smile even though he hadn’t meant to. 

“It’s been a long time since I’ve woken up like that,” she said, like it was an admission. Like she trusted him with it. 

“Me too,” he said, grimacing as the old wound in his knee tightened like a vise. And he’d known without Epharia saying it how fucked up their view of the world was, but the pain made it more real, made it possible. Still wildly incredible, but not impossible. 

“I’ll meet you at the Heap,” Aurelio spoke to Epharia, not to Furiosa, and as she slung her arm around her shoulder she looked at her daemon with so much silent purpose that he flattened his feathers and pulled his head back in submission. But he didn’t explain, only hopped up to the window and flung himself out into the air. 

“What’s that about?” Max asked, strapping the crumpled old brace around his leg. 

“I’ll… I’ll explain later,” Epharia said, just as evasive as Aurelio had been. “Tonight. We’ve been waiting for you to ask.” 

And before either Max or Furiosa could work out how to answer the daemon’s almost accusatory statement, Epharia had barked at the door to open it (even Max didn’t know how his own magic worked, damnit, but she did) and shoved her way out into the warren of the Citadel. 

The two humans looked at each other for an explanation that they didn’t have, but there was no sense of concern coming from his bond with Epharia, only a vague anxiety and a growing bubble of excitement that Max usually felt from her when she disappeared off in the Wastes to hunt. She might not want or need to eat, but she enjoyed the careful patience and skill it took to hunt. 

In the end, Max just shared a confused shrug with Furiosa, and as one they moved out towards the food hall.


End file.
